Nanoscale device emits light as bright as an object 10,000 times its size

Amplifying light a few hundred times with magnifying lenses is easy.
Amplifying light by altering the resonant properties of light itself is a much
more difficult proposition. However, if recent research by engineers at the
University of Wisconsin-Madison (UWM) engineers is anything to go by, the effort is
well worth it: They claim to have constructed a nanoscale device that can emit
light as powerfully as an object more than 10,000 times its size.

According to the researchers, the light-amplifying properties of the
device – known as a nanoresonator – are analogous to that of a guitar string that vibrates in
sympathy to local acoustic energy. As such, this tiny optical device
receives light energy
from its surroundings to produce a light output much larger than
expected. This, according to the team, offers many advantages in imaging
techniques over normal lenses, as the device's light-harvesting ability
is not limited by its physical properties to direction and size.

"Making an object look much 10,000 times larger than its physical
size has lots of implications in technologies related to light," says
assistant professor Zongfu Yu. "We are developing photodetectors based
on this technology, and, for
example, it could be helpful for photographers wanting to shoot better
quality pictures in weak light conditions."

Just as sound can be made to resonate and amplify when a standing wave is generated in a low-loss reflection chamber, so too can light be amplified by an environment
that manipulates the physical properties of light-wave energy. The UWM researchers exploited this fact in their research to engineer an artificial material in which the wavelength of light is much longer than in a vacuum, thereby allowing the light to resonate much more strongly.

The material also condenses light to a size smaller than its
wavelength, which means that a large amount of light energy is captured before being reflected onto a much larger surface where it is widely scattered, providing a much-magnified version of the original light energy. In this way, even microscopically-small objects can be made to appear enormous in the amplified light image.

"The device makes an object super-visible by enlarging its optical
appearance with this super-strong scattering effect," says PhD student of electrical and computer engineering at UWM, Ming Zhou.

With the nanoresonator’s ability to absorb
copious amounts of energy from light, the team also believes that their device
presents possibilities in high-efficiency solar cells. Yu believes
that the ability to re-emit unwanted energy in the infrared during solar
capture would allow the device to be self-cooling, further increasing its
efficiency.

"This research opens up a new way to
manipulate the flow of light, and could enable new technologies in light
sensing and solar energy conversion," says Yu.